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Ability Art Quotes

43 art quotes about Ability | Submit more Ability art quotes

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. (Douglas Adams)

If you have real abilities prove them. Accomplish something of value with your gifts and talents. (David Allio)

Natural abilities are like natural plants that need pruning by study. (Sir Francis Bacon)

ability, n. The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity. (Ambrose Bierce)

Ability is of little account without opportunity. (Napoleon Bonaparte)

You are never asked to do more than you are able without being given the strength and ability to do it. (Eileen Caddy)

No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor. (Thomas Carlyle)

Man is able to do what he is unable to imagine. His head trails a wake through the galaxy of the absurd. (Rene Char)

Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability. (Cicero)

I'm very learning-disabled, and I think it drove me to what I'm doing. (Chuck Close)

We all have the ability... we just don't all have the courage to follow our dreams and to follow the signs. (Paulo Coelho)

The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has. (Confucius)

There is only one proof of ability - action. (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)

If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astonish ourselves. (Thomas Edison)

To overanalyze the source of aptitudes greatly diminishes the mystery and beauty of all our abilities. (Michael Fantuz)

Great ability without discretion comes almost invariably to a tragic end. (Leon-Michel Gambretta)

We vary greatly in the natural advantages that we've been given. The world's not fair. (Malcolm Gladwell)

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment. (Baltasar Gracian)

There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. (Robert Half)

There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. (Robert Half)

In my experience, anyone can paint if he doesn't have to. (Beatrice Lillie)

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Art is not living. It is a use of living. The artist has the ability to take that living and use it in a certain way, and produce art. (Audre Lorde)

Cultivate all your faculties; you must either use them or lose them. (John Lubbock)

The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do. (Orison Swett Marden)

Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you're needed by someone. (Martina Navratilova)

I know I can act. There aren't too many other jobs I know how to do. (Jack Nicholson)

When the 'weaker' of the two brains (right and left) is stimulated and encouraged to work in co-operation with the stronger side, the end result is a great increase in overall ability and... often five to ten times more effectiveness. (Robert Ornstein)

The will is commendable though the ability may be wanting. (Ovid)

Creativity concerns what we do with our abilities. Any normal person can be creative in terms of whatever abilities he or she has or can acquire. (D. N. Perkins)

If you can't you must, and if you must you can. (Tony Robbins)

It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability. (Francois de La Rochefoucauld)

The art of using moderate abilities to advantage often brings greater results than actual brilliance. (Francois de La Rochefoucauld)

I will pay more for the ability to deal with people before any other ability under the sun. (John D. Rockefeller)

Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities. (John Ruskin)

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability. (Arthur Schopenhauer)

When I get comfortable, or uncomfortable, with my abilities, it pays to see a real artist at work, and there is none better than Mother Nature. (Kevin Sprague)

A man who is half an idiot, but who keeps a sharp lookout and acts prudently all his life, often enjoys the pleasure of triumphing over men of more imagination than he. (Stendhal)

If art was defined simply by the ability to draw, then my inkjet printer would be a greater artist than Michelangelo. (Curtis Verdun)

You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. (Edward O. Wilson)

Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have. (Zig Ziglar)


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Editor: Robert Genn

Assistant Editor: Shawn Jackson

Associate Editors:

Scott Altman, Bonnie Austin, Karen Austin, Michele Becker, Joe Blodgett, Norman Brown, Alyce Bryson, Leanne Cadden, Penny Duane, Max Elliot, Derek Franklin, Sara Genn, Mardy Grothe, Harry Hartley, Sue Holland, Sue Legault, Tammy McManus, Eric Mewhinney, Bruce Miller, Laura Parrish, Andrea Pratt, Dan Roberts, Shirley Rochon, Gilbert Roy, John Sherlock, Victor Wong,
And many others who have so far contributed one quote or a few. Please join us and add more at

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Last modified: May 23, 2013